Case Number 12961: Small Claims Court

THE WIZ: 30TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION

The Charge

Don't nobody bring me no bad news.

The Case

Don't let the accolades fool you. From the brainstorm of a New York disc
jockey to the toast of Broadway, the stage musical The Wiz encountered
just as many development challenges as Louis B. Mayer did in 1939 adapting L.
Frank Baum's best selling novel for MGM. But both projects were well worth the
effort. It's too bad the same can't be said for this film.

Hollywood has long been mining Broadway for movie properties. For many
years, musicals were a bottomless pit of source material, but that well started
running dry during the late 1960s. By the time The Wiz became the darling
of the Tony Awards in '75, many studios had already lost their shirts on
attempts to keep the musical genre alive and few executives even dared entertain
the idea of trying again. But producer Rob Cohen trudged forward with what
appeared to be a futile mission, that is until it landed him a late night call
from Motown's Berry Gordy. It seemed Diana Ross wanted to play Dorothy and Berry
was going to help make that happen. Paramount already had a hit with
Mahogany that year and Universal saw an opportunity to ride the coattails
of Ms. Ross' popularity. With one star on the landscape, it quickly drew several
more to the project including Diana's friend Michael Jackson, composer
extraordinaire Quincy Jones, and director Sidney Lumet.

Wait, Sidney Lumet?! The guy who gave us Serpico, Dog Day
Afternoon, and Network? That Sidney Lumet? Yep. It seems costume
designer turned screenwriter, Joel Schumacher, whose first two scripts were
Sparkle and Car Wash, was moving the story from Kansas to New York
and who knows the city better than Lumet?

If you haven't already guessed by now, this project was a train wreck
waiting to happen. Unfortunately, nobody involved saw it coming...or if they
did, they bit their tongues, hard.

Diana Ross was 34 years old at the time, playing a 24 year old. Right. Oh,
and her interpretation of how a 24 year old would react when faced with being
swept away by a tornado, making it's way down a Bedford-Stuyvesant side street,
in the middle of Thanksgiving snow storm, was by sobbing uncontrollably while
crying out for her dog Toto. She carries that choice throughout the entire film.
I kid you not. Even her exceptional voice doesn't save this performance, as
Diana the actress is so affected by her emotions that it undermines any real
musical credibility. But the responsibility for the film's failure does not rest
solely on her supreme shoulders. There were plenty of co-conspirators.

The great Quincy Jones, who most everyone loves and respects, brought in
R&B duo Ashford and Simpson to punch up Charlie Smalls music, which didn't
really need any punching up at all. They tossed out the Scarecrow's opening
number "I Was Born" in favor of an original song for Michael Jackson,
and butchered several others such as "Soon As I Get Home" and "If
You Believe." You know you have trouble when even the great Lena Horne
can't deliver what should be the film's most moving number. But the music wasn't
the worst of it. The film's structural problems lie with Lumet and
Schumacher.

In reworking William Brown's stage book, Joel effectively strips away all of
its intimacy and replaces it with larger than life sequences strung together
with very little character development or genuine emotion. It's a story that
wanders aimlessly from Dorothy's inexplicable isolation within her own family to
her arrival in OZ where even less makes sense.

Lumet proceeds to overwhelm the screen with hundreds of dancers as graffiti
imprisoned munchkins effectively swallowing up our main character in a sea of
black lit darkness. He then twists New York into a cheesy wonderland that is so
cavernous and deserted you almost expect to see Will Smith pop out and scream
"I Am Legend!" And that emptiness embodies the plot, which has no real
antagonist whatsoever. It's supposed to be Evillene, the Wicked Witch of the
West (Mabel King, What's Happening), but we only see her twice in the
entire picture -- just long enough to sing and expire -- and her influence is
barely felt anywhere else. This leaves our heroes with little to do but wander
from warped NYC landmark to landmark -- Coney Island, the Library, Yankee
Stadium, and the Subway -- until they eventually reach the Emerald City; which
is basically the Manhattan skyline as seen from the George Washington bridge,
with a gold apple serving as the Sun. Seriously.

Inside the city, we find another several hundred dancers eerily strutting
their way around what is now Ground Zero, but used to the be plaza between
Towers 1 and 2 of the World Trade Center. By the time Dorothy and the gang have
their meeting with The Wiz, the audience could care less about what happens to
them. We're just waiting for the film to end, while trying to figure out why
Lumet keeps going back to that stupid "can't catch a cab in OZ"
gag.

It's not all bad news though. Accomplished costume and production designer
Tony Walton (Julie Andrews ex-husband) does a phenomenal job painting the
characters and the landscape of OZ. One look at the stage costumes versus their
onscreen counterparts and you'll get just a taste of his talent.

On the performance front, you have to acknowledge the exceptional work of
Michael Jackson (still with his original face) as Scarecrow and Ted Ross as
Fleetwood the Lion. Of course, Ted perfected this character inside and out
through god only knows how many Broadway performances. The subtlety of his line
delivery and facial expressions dwarf his more famous leading lady. Michael, on
the other hand, in his film debut, is a wonder to behold. One could argue his
craft was honed performing on stage from a very young age, but acting to camera
is an entirely different skill and he nails it right out of the gate. As a
result, Scarecrow has the most interesting journey of all the characters and
proves to be the blissful heart and soul of this otherwise comatose patient.

The rest of the cast is a mixed bag. Nipsey Russell as TinMan has his
moments, but ultimately can't keep up with Michael and Ted. Lena Horne makes two
brief appearances as Glinda the Good Witch of the South, surrounded by Anne
Geddes-like babies, dressed as stars floating on black velvet. Don't ask me to
explain. The image still creeps me out. Mabel King gets swallowed up by Stan
Winston's prosthetics and loses much of Evillene's firey flavor from her
Broadway incarnation. And, like Diana Ross, Richard Pryor's performance is
overly affected. Even in his non-great-and-powerful-Wiz guise, you know there
has to be some authenticity in there somewhere, but it's hard to make out amidst
all the yelling.

Presented in what is supposed to be a remastered 1.85:1 anamorphic
widescreen, the picture is dark and grainy while the colors appear washed out.
There's not a lot of noticeable dirt or scratches on this transfer or a great
deal of digital tampering, but the image just comes across as flat. The DTS and
5.1 surround tracks are a surprise, but don't get too excited. The channel
separation is weak and the music doesn't hold a candle to the original Broadway
cast album.

In terms of bonus materials, the 1978 production featurette "Wiz on
Down the Road" is the centerpiece, detailing the origins of the film
alongside interviews with Lumet and producer Rob Cohen. No interviews with the
cast though. We also get the original theatrical trailer (void of any
traditional narration) and an 8-track soundtrack CD. Not much of an anniversary
gift, if you ask me.

With recent innovative adaptations like Rob Marshall's Chicago and
Tim Burton's Sweeney Todd, there is plenty of life left in the movie
musical. It's unfortunate The Wiz wasn't kept in cryogenic storage until
it could be given its just due.

The Verdict

Parole is denied. Even 30 years later, Diana Ross, Joel Schumacher, Quincy
Jones, and Sidney Lumet are still guilty of wizzin' all over this great Charlie
Smalls musical.